Work Text:
Harut stretched out his hand, grasping desperately for his brother. He couldn’t see him through the blaze of white light that surrounded them both, but he knew that Marut was there. He had to be. They had been standing right next to each other, making the most of a rare few moments of rest by visiting Jannah, the Garden. But suddenly Harut was no longer watching Joshua trim a lilac bush, but instead was watching helplessly as the ground beneath Marut’s feet disappeared, and his brother plummeted towards an uncertain fate. Before he could call out, he too was falling.
The roar of the wind drowned out any noises that might have been torn from his throat, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t feel his vessel’s vocal cords vibrating, pushed almost to their limit. The light around him grew brighter as his endless fall continued. He could not tell if he was falling faster now than he had been at the beginning, but he could see that the light was growing brighter with each passing minute. If it even was minutes that were passing. It could have been days for all Harut knew. His eyes began to water, buffeted by the ceaseless winds and burned by the light. The velocity at which he was falling must have been great, for Harut could feel the strain in his wings. Wings that were suddenly more substantial than they had any right to be. As he fell faster and faster, they grew more solid, and he could feel the wind tearing at his feathers.
When the first feather was ripped from the calamus embedded in his skin, he screamed loud enough to drown out the rushing wind. It was an unearthly sound, fit for an unearthly being. And it was joined by others.
He heard Marut. Marut, and then Joshua, Raziel, Ambriel and Lailah; all the angels that had been visiting Jannah.
So it wasn’t just him and Marut. All the others were falling as well. And from the cacophony of screams that were now surrounding Harut, it appeared that it was not just those in Jannah, but the entire host of Heaven.
But Harut did not have time to ponder this information, as a second feather was torn from his skin. Then a third. A fourth. And as he screamed he felt the strain and pressure increase on his secondary shoulder joints, which connected his wings to his human vessel. He knew what would happen next; he could only pray that he would pass out before it did.
The next thing Harut was aware of was the darkness. And the silence. He opened his eyes and was relieved to see that the blinding light no longer surrounded him. He carefully sat up, expecting to be seized with pain, but felt nothing but a curious emptiness, as if something was missing from him. The memory of watching Marut drop out of the sky surged back into the forefront of his mind, and he looked around wildly, searching for some sign of his brother. He spotted him lying on the ground several yards away, and also saw the tall man leaning over him. He tried to call out to warn Marut, but he had no voice, and when he tried to stand he was gently pushed back down by a strangely calming hand on his shoulder.
“Do not try to stand so quickly, brother. Rest.”
Harut looked up and to the left, in the direction that the voice had come from, and saw that the hand on his shoulder belonged to Castiel. He had only met the youngest angel once, but his face had been burned into the mind of every angel by Naomi soon after the Apocalypse was thwarted. He swallowed, and managed to croak out,
“Brother, what has happen to us?”
Castiel looked at the ground, and heaved a great sigh,
“Metatron has expelled all of us from Heaven in the most violent, yet efficient, way possible. You all had your wings torn from you in order him to collect the Grace of every angel. Some did not survive. Some will never be the same. And all of us will have to live as humans.”
Castiel seemed to realize that news like this would mean Harut would need time alone, and he walked away, obviously moving on to the next of his brethren that lay broken on the ground. Harut tried to process everything that Castiel had said. Metatron? Expelled from Heaven? Were they all Fallen now, as Lucifer had been?
The only thing he was not concerned about was the fact that they would now have to live as humans. It was not long ago that he and Marut had lived amongst the peoples of Babylon, and had succumbed to the sins of human life. They knew better than most angels what it meant to be human. They knew the pain it could bring, but also the great joys. And if this was their punishment, if this was what their Father had abandoned them to, then he and Marut would survive.